In a quiet classroom on the outskirts of San Salvador, the air was punctuated not by the drone of chalk on blackboards, but by the bright chatter of 17-year-old Ana María as she clicked through a laptop screen and asked for the hundredth time: “So this lightning-network thing really means I can send pennies across the world in seconds?”
This moment, small yet profound, is part of something larger unfolding in El Salvador—a country often headline-grabbing for its bold adoption of cryptocurrency, now quietly pioneering a new frontier: teaching youth the language of money differently.
In April 2024, the local education initiative celebrated its first graduates of a ten-week “Bitcoin Diploma” course—a collaboration between the government’s National Bitcoin Office and the non-profit Mi Primer Bitcoin.
According to The Daily Hodl, “students completed a 10-week-long educational program … teaches children the history and technology behind the top crypto asset by market cap.”
Yet this is not mere crypto-promotion. It is a story about hope, about doors opening for young Salvadorans in a country long seeking alternatives to economic inertia.
From “What Is Money?” To Diplomas In The Ledger
To grasp the depth of this transformation, it helps to look back at how El Salvador reached this point. In 2021, the country captured worldwide attention by becoming the first nation to recognize Bitcoin as official currency.
The decision marked a daring step into uncharted territory—one that stirred debate across economic circles. While some viewed it as a risky experiment in financial policy, others saw it as a visionary attempt to embrace innovation and redefine national prosperity.
Amid this, Mi Primer Bitcoin quietly began crafting something more foundational: education. As the organisation recounts, “Our Bitcoin Diploma was the first in the world to ever be used in a public school system for credit” in El Salvador.
Then, in June 2022, 38 public-school students earned their diplomas after a ten-week course.
By April 2025, the Ministry of Education formalised the next step: introducing a new curriculum titled “What Is Money?” aimed at children aged seven to thirteen, integrating three hours a week of financial and bitcoin education in social studies.
And by August 2025, reports suggest the programme had already seen hundreds more graduates—including 350 female students in one ceremony alone.
A Classroom, A Dream, A Transformation
Back in that classroom, Ana María and her classmates balanced notebooks marked “Futures” with homework labelled “Lightning Network.”
The teacher, Luis, began his career teaching literature; six months ago he enrolled in a Mi Primer Bitcoin “train-the-trainer” workshop and now guides students through modules titled “History of Money,” “Fiat Vs. Crypto,” “How Blockchains Work,” and “Practical Wallet Skills.”
“My parents don’t have a bank account,” says Ana María. “I want to make sure I understand money before I’m pushed into it.” Her voice holds more steadiness than you’d expect from a teenager—perhaps because she’s quietly aware that what she’s learning isn’t just theory. It’s empowerment.
The curriculum used in this diploma is open-source and designed to provoke critical thinking as much as transaction-skills. Mi Primer Bitcoin’s founder, John Dennehy, put it plainly: “Bitcoin education is about more than just bitcoin: it teaches critical thinking and financial responsibility.”
This transformation is especially meaningful in a country where nearly half the population lives with food insecurity and fewer than half hold formal bank accounts.
Measuring Risk, Embracing Possibility
Of course, optimism must be tempered with clarity. The broader bitcoin experiment in El Salvador remains subject to criticism. The International Monetary Fund flagged the country’s bitcoin exposure as a risk to public finances. Earlier this year, the IMF outlined that some potential risks “have not yet materialised” but urged greater transparency.
Yet in these classrooms, the focus is not on gambling the country’s future—it is on giving tomorrow’s adults tools for choice. As Dennehy notes, “The means is an individual that feels empowered in their own life.”
Turning to the diplomatic level, the programme is not just local—it aims global. The Bitcoin Diploma curriculum strives to be replicable: translated into 20+ languages and used in more than 20 countries.
Stories Behind The Numbers
María Elena is a 16-year-old graduate of the diploma programme. She comes from La Libertad, a department that earlier this year was selected for the roll-out of “What Is Money?” in schools. She says: “Before, I just accepted that banks were where money lived. Now I ask: why? Who decided that? And what if I could decide too?”
Her older brother works for a small electronics shop in San Salvador. He says he noticed María Elena explaining bitcoin concepts to neighbours, answering questions like “Can I store value this way too?” and “Is this just another app?”
Luis the teacher says: “Some will go on to be software engineers deciding payments systems. Others will go into business. The point is they no longer wait passively for money to work; they ask how and why it works.”
Why It Matters
In many parts of the world, financial education is either absent or generic—lessons on interest rates, budgets, banks, and taxes. What is happening here is different: a country that took a controversial economic bet is reversing the gaze inward, asking: what if the next generation doesn’t just adapt, but leads?
Young Salvadorans aren’t just being taught the mechanics of bitcoin—they’re being invited into a narrative where they understand how money works, who controls it, and how they might control parts of it themselves. This narrative shift matters. As financial systems evolve, it matters that citizens are not left behind.
Looking Ahead With Hope
It’s early days. The diploma programme, the new curriculum, thousands of learners—all are experiments in real time. Success will depend on whether students carry forward these ideas into jobs, innovation, and society. But even now, in classrooms where code meets textbooks and wallets meet workbooks, something promising is unfolding.
In El Salvador, the story of these graduations is more than a crypto-headline. It is a quiet revolution in education and empowerment. The diploma recipients may one day look back and say: I was part of the first group. I learned to ask “Why money?” and “What power do I have?”
And that, in a world of fast-changing economics, is a hopeful place to start.
